just came out of the Instacart EM loop, didn't get the offer but learned a ton. sharing because I couldn't find good prep material for this role specifically.
the loop was 5 rounds total: recruiter screen technical screen (architecture + coding hybrid) people leadership round cross-functional round bar raiser style panel
technical screen this surprised me. they still wanted me to code, not like leetcode medium-hard but they gave a design scenario for a consumer-facing feature (something vaguely similar to the shopper assignment logic) and asked me to write rough code with callouts for where i'd put abstractions. they want to know you can still read and reason about the system, not that you're shipping code daily.
people leadership this was the most important round in retrospect. they asked really specific questions about how i build feedback loops with my team, how i handle a senior IC who's underperforming, what my 1:1 cadence looks like and why. vague "I set clear expectations" answers won't cut it. they want to know the actual mechanics you use.
cross-functional round a PM + a TPM were in this one. focused on how i partner with product when we have technical debt to pay vs feature pressure. I fumbled this a bit. my advice: have a specific story about a time you successfully negotiated eng investment into the roadmap. not just that you did it, but how.
bar raiser panel couldn't tell who was evaluating what in this one. it was more senior people asking about org scaling, when i've had to change my management style, what i do when the team doesn't believe in the roadmap. classic senior leadership questions but with real depth expected.
leveling-wise I was going for senior EM (managing managers or large teams). they seem to differentiate pretty clearly between EM-IC (managing individual contributors) and EM-EM (managing managers) and won't budge much on leveling if your experience doesn't match the job scope.
process was well organized. 3.5 weeks end to end. the recruiter gave quick updates at each stage which i appreciated.